AP® English Literature and Composition
2005 Free-Response Questions
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2005 AP® ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION
FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS
ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION
SECTION II
Total time—2 hours
Question 1
(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts as one-third of the total essay section score.)
The poems below, published in 1789 and 1794, were written by William Blake in response to the condition of
chimney sweeps. Usually small children, sweeps were forced inside chimneys to clean their interiors. Read the two
poems carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, compare and contrast the two poems, taking into consideration the
poetic techniques Blake uses in each.
The Chimney Sweeper
The Chimney Sweeper
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry “ ’weep! ’weep! ’weep! ’weep!”*
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.
Line
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A little black thing among the snow
Crying “ ’weep, ’weep,” in notes of woe!
“Where are thy father & mother? say?”
“They are both gone up to the church to pray.
Line
There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curl’d like a lambs back, was shav’d, so I said,
“Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.”
And so he was quiet, & that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight!
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack,
Were all of them lock’d up in coffins of black;
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“Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smil’d among the winter’s snow;
They clothéd me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
“And because I am happy, & dance & sing,
They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King,
Who make up a heaven of our misery.”
William Blake, “The Chimney Sweeper,” The Complete Poetry and
Prose of William Blake, ed. David V. Erdman (1789; 1794; Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1965).
And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he open’d the coffins & set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run,
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun;
(1794)
Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,
He’d have God for his father & never want joy.
And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Tho’ the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
* The child’s lisping attempt at the chimney sweep’s street cry,
“Sweep! Sweep!”
William Blake, “The Chimney Sweeper,” The Complete Poetry and
Prose of William Blake, ed. David V. Erdman (1789; 1794; Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1965).
(1789)
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2005 AP® ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION
FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS
Question 2
(Suggested time — 40 minutes. This question counts as one-third of the total essay section score.)
Printed below is the complete text of a short story written in 1946 by Katharine Brush. Read the story carefully.
Then write an essay in which you show how the author uses literary devices to achieve her purpose.
Unfortunately, we have been denied permission to
reproduce “Birthday Party” by Katharine Brush
on this Web site.
The short story was originally published in
The New Yorker.
.
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2005 AP® ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION
FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS
Question 3
(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts as one-third of the total essay section score.)
In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess “that outward existence
which conforms, the inward life which questions.” In a novel or play that you have studied, identify a character
who conforms outwardly while questioning inwardly. Then write an essay in which you analyze how this tension
between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid mere plot
summary.
You may select a work from the list below or another appropriate novel or play of comparable literary merit.
King Lear
Madame Bovary
Middlemarch
Mrs. Dalloway
1984
Obasan
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Persuasion
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Portrait of a Lady
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
The Scarlet Letter
Surfacing
The Sun Also Rises
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Typical American
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Age of Innocence
The American
As You Like It
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
Billy Budd
Bless Me, Ultima
Brave New World
Catch-22
The Color Purple
The Crucible
Death of a Salesman
A Doll’s House
Ethan Frome
A Gesture Life
Go Tell It On the Mountain
Invisible Man
END OF EXAM
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